Henry Ford

Other Accomplishments and Controversies

His numerous philanthropies, in addition to the Ford Foundation, included $7.5 million for the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and $5 million for a museum in Dearborn, where in 1933 he established Greenfield Village—a reproduction of an early American village. Ford also wrote, in collaboration with Samuel Crowther, My Life and Work (1923), Today and Tomorrow (1926), Moving Forward (1931), and Edison as I Knew Him (1930).

Ford's international reputation made him a natural target for journalists. His libel suit against the Chicago Tribune in 1919 led to an examination by the Tribune attorney, intended to show Ford's lack of education. Anti-Semitic articles in Ford's Dearborn Independent brought further legal controversy; he was forced to apologize for the articles. In the 1930s, Ford was widely attacked for employing Harry Bennett, a former boxer who established a squad of thugs to spy, beat up, and otherwise intimidate union organizers.

Ford was also a poor manager who failed to capitalize on his company's early success. In the 1920s he failed to respond to consumer tastes by introducing new models and the company fell far behind General Motors. By the time of his retirement, the company's accounting procedures were so primitive that Ford's managers were unable to accurately tell how much it cost to manufacture a car and the company was losing $9.5 million a month.